Easter Dresses

Since today is March 1st, that means Easter is 30 days away. I love Easter. I'm even more excited about it now that Chris is in full-time ministry. As a child, I looked forward to my basket filled with goodies and the egg hunt with candy. I always had the hopes that I'd receive the golden egg with money inside. As a teenager, I looked forward to the new dresses and the nice gift I would get from my Mom. As an adult I now grasp the concept of Easter and the miracle of Easter and the gift of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday blow me away. (I still look forward to the new dress too!!)

You know what would be an Easter miracle to many villages in Zambia in Africa. Water.

Yes, we spend money on Easter baskets filled with goodies, pictures with Easter bunnies that make our children scream, dresses for that family picture that never turns out as perfect as we envision, and meals to feed our families five times over. We never thought about water. Water just is. We have clean water to drink, clean water to bathe, clean water to wash those new dresses that get messed up by us and/or our kids. So how about this year we do something different. How about this year, we bring that Easter miracle to a village in Zambia.

My friend Jacob started a ministry called Water282 to bring water and the living water to villages in Zambia. Join in on this Easter campaign and help him bring not only clean water to drink but also the story of our Easter Miracle, our living water, our Saviour to this village in Zambia...

Go to Water282's website to say Yes to the dress!

 

Sending you to Bonnie By the Bay

On this Monday I was going to post about my friend Brad's sermon from yesterday. He has moved his sweet family down to Mobile and is the Pastor of the Contemporary Service (and much more!) at Dauphin Way UMC. So like any other day I pull up my blogger and take a stroll through my daily reads and realize my sweet friend Bonnie has already written about it! She did it so eloquently I knew I had to send you there. So I am going to send you there. But first, let me tell you a little bit about this person you will be so privileged to learn about through her writing.

Bonnie and I have an interesting story. We went to Elementary School together and lived around the corner from eachother. I'm telling you- the most beautiful elementary school girl I've EVER known! Well after 6th grade she moved off to Auburn and that was that, or so I thought. Flash foward to August of 2004. It is move in day and I'm unloading my stuff into my dorm (310 Lupton from what I remember... or was it 210. ... who knows?!?) Anyway- I realize that this same Bonnie Nell Jackson lived just a few short doors down from me! Thank you God for putting this girl back in my life!

Some Auburn friends at my baby shower in December! Bonnie is in the animal print top with black pants!

Anyway, we became fast friends again and spent our college experiences together. College was a whirlwind. I won't get into the whole mess of that but what I can honestly speak for both of us is that we have grown leaps and bounds since then and are happy to stand and say that God has done so much change and refining in our life and we are so thankful. We're especially thankful that He led us to our husbands that we are so very grateful for.

So I don't get to see her as often but yesterday I did get to have a quick catch up conversation and a hug and hope to see her again soon! Check out her blog though, she's in graduate school for Education, starting her business "Bonnie on the Bay" making beautiful home decor items from oysters, working at a plastic surgery office, being a beautiful budget friendly decorator, and awesome wife to her wonderful husband Matthew!

So with that- I'm sending you on the way to Bonnie by the Bay!!

Mission Day - Great Day of Service

   This last Saturday, our church participated in the Great Day of Service. Methodist churches all over Montgomery spent the morning helping others with all different kinds of things. Some did yard work, some did home maintenance, and so much more. St. James collected bags of food that would feed a family of 4 for 4 days. The members of the church collected over 2 tons of food and we spent Saturday morning distributing them. Our small group and another small group took about 150 bags to Reality and Truth and distributed the bags there. It was so much fun being able to talk to those people and their excitement over the food.

Our bag set up outside Reality and Truth

Two men taking away their bags

Part of our group (including Baby H) near the end of the day!

Each of the bags essentially had the same things but they would have different types of snacks included. Some had Chips Ahoy, some had Oreos, some had Cheese Nips, and there was this one special bag with Nutty Butty Bars in it. There was this lady came up that didn't have one of the pre-distributed tickets but we assumed we'd have extras so we asked her to wait for a little while so that we could give all the bags out to those who already had tickets. Well wait she did! She had her bag hidden near the back so she could get those delicious Nutty Butty bars! What a joy it was to see her face when she got the bag that she wanted so much. It is no different than when we go to the grocery and are so excited to get that special bag of chips and bring them home and open it! Praying they felt some of God's love for them through us and their full bellies!


We took Hutton out and had a great time and of course everyone commented on the beautiful baby boy! I'm not sure he'll remember his first ever mission day but we will and can't wait until the days when we can tell him about it!

Hands and Feet...

As Christians we're called to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Serving has been thrown at me constantly since we returned from Hawaii. We got back and Saturday morning our church had a Mission Day where about 350 volunteers went out and served in different areas of our community. Chris and I went out to Common Ground- speechless is the word. I had heard about the Ministry, met the founders before and heard them talk, heard about tons of people going out there. I had never actually gone out there myself until Sunday. It was incredible, the ministry is awesome, the kids are incredible, and it has been on my heart ever since. I urge you to go to their website and then check out the links that take you to some of the staff member's blogs- they are truly incredible!
Common Ground Montgomery

Then, Sunday our Pastor Lester preached on a book by a local well-known Pastor John Ed Mathison. John Ed's book is entitled Treasures of the Transformed Life and this week the topic was on "Giving a Drink to Others." Lester spoke about the different opportunities we have to serve and remembering that we are called to serve. He had people in our church who had passions in different missions come up and talk about their missions and how to get involved. I heard ya God- we need to be servants. We need to be your hands and feet.

It only continues and this is what got me the most. My small group at church is reading a book called Radical by David Platt who pastors a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Incredible book that pushes you and makes you look at things in a completely different light. The chapter I read last night was also about Serving. It took on an interesting debate about whether people all over the world who have never heard the Gospel go to Hell since they do not have faith in Christ. He went at it from every different answer and left you with the call to go. There are 1.5 billion people in this world who haven't heard the Gospel and don't know the love of Christ. Wow. Most people reading this heard the Gospel sometime between 1 and 5 years old and then who knows how many times after that. It just left me thinking, what can I do? How can I make a difference? What can I sacrifice for someone's SALVATION? What is bigger than that? A better question, what can I NOT sacrifice for someone's salvation?

I don't have the book next to me at the moment to quote this exactly; however, one of the most interesting points to me was this... God is above all, he is the ultimate healer, giver, he is powerful, he is strong, he can do all. So he could put the words of the Gospel written across the sky. That isn't what he chose to do though. Instead, he called us to share His word and share His love. What good are we as Christians if all we do is sit around with other Christians and learn more about our Faith when there are so many who know nothing about it?

I know that was all serious, but at the same time it is just some interesting thoughts.